


my heart is the worst kind of weapon

by Hieiandshino



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Dark, Astonishing X-Men - Freeform, Dissociation, F/M, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Pietro Maximoff, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Other, Psychological Torture, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Then comfort, canonical dark bobby drake, dark bobby drake, i've been writing this for over a year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:59:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7747699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hieiandshino/pseuds/Hieiandshino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is covered in snow, and Pietro is at its center, walking through thin ice.</p><p>Or, watch me as I rewrite an entire arc of <i>Astonishing X-Men</i> and put Pietro in the middle of it.</p><p>(unrevised work)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. and did you hear the news?

**Author's Note:**

> Marvel (all media types) does not belong to me.
> 
> Based on _Astonishing X-Men #62, #63, #64, #65_ , by Marjorie Liu. Spoilers from this whole arc, with major changes on the story (inclusion of Pietro Maximoff and his POV) and the sequence of scenes.
> 
> This is **not a good fanfic**. More warnings and tags as the story develops.
> 
> (or: what I have been doing since march 2015)

Every single person was getting ready for the storm.

It was all that it was being talked about, even in the Avengers. The Avengers Update kept receiving messages for places in New York that definitely needed help and the fact many shelters were already at full capacity. Pym thought the storm would be a great moment to show the students that there was more to being a superhero than just fighting the bad guys, so the professors, Pietro included, made an actual schedule for the students to help people in need during the storm, in shelters and on the streets, taking shifts during the worse days and teaming up with the Avengers.

Nobody was expecting the snow to hit everywhere else. Iron Man commented to him that when the snowstorm struck the world, Thor froze in place and started mentioning a certain word that implicates the Ragnarök and that the specialists all over the world already reached the consensus that this cold is not natural.

When he heard the news, it was 4am. Pietro woke up with his phone ringing angrily at him, Tigra’s name flashing light across the dark room. Pietro, who slept too little because of his powers, was both incredible tired and angry at his fellow Avenger, until he heard the news.

The world was covered in snow. Not just New York, not just the States, but the whole world. Whole countries who never saw cold so intense were in the worst of shapes, with people dying everywhere because they were never prepared for the snow to come.

Pietro lost all the sleep he had after that and just _ran_.

Now he is running across the world, giving every person he meets a coat and then sending the Avengers a brief report of how bad those places were holding up ( _pretty bad_ ). When things get too bad, however, he stops and helps, helps with what he can do ( _many things; not enough_ ) until an Avenger team gets down where he is to keep helping so he can find worse places to be. Every superhero is mobilized. Hell, even villains are being forced to help because nobody ever saw something this intense. Pietro doesn’t stop, not even to eat. He eats as he runs and that does not help at all, he keeps burning all the calories he puts on his mouth, but he is still awake and running, so that is a plus. Pietro is drained and Pietro is tired, but people _need_ him and his speed. He himself needs it too ( _this is atonement and redemption, a thousand years of crimes paid with every mile and every person he saves and maybe, just maybe, he can be a father to Luna once again_ ).

All the time, however, as he runs, he feels eyes on him. Surrounded by all that white, by all that blue that is being frozen slowly ( _oceans freezing, that is way too much_ ), he feels someone watching him. He hears the rumors too. About an X-Man. About Robert Drake.

( _about Lorna, missing, ice everywhere_ )

.

Truth is, Pietro wants to help figure this out. Not just help the people, not just run around the world. He wants to help, wants to find his sister and stop the man ( _he knows Drake is good. Too good. Knows that he pretends to be that happy and that positive and that stupid too_ ). Pietro, however, is necessary in other places. Anywhere. Everywhere.

And everywhere he goes, wondering how he can help the X-Men, the Avengers. Lorna. Wondering, too, why there are eyes on him in all that white, lurking like shadows falling from the sky in the form of frozen water. Every snowflake feels like a camera directed towards his every movement, watching, recording, and Pietro wonders: why him?

It’s not until Pietro stops that he finds out.

.

He is back in New York when it happens.

One moment he is talking with Banner about the situation in Australia and the animals dying, eating so many pancakes it makes the man a little green ( _the good type of green, not the Hulk one_ ), and in the other, his eyes are on the floor, unfocused, and he watches the plate meet the ground and shatter, always so slow. Thinks _I could save it_ , but the world is vertigo now and there is this sinking feeling on his stomach that says that he is about to pass out. Pietro notices one of his hands are on the counter, holding himself up, still, _whatever_. He closes his other hand in a fist when he feels it trembling.

When he looks up, Pietro is being watched by Banner, Carol and Rogers, all too close to him. He blinks, releases air from his lungs through his mouth and soon Rogers and Carol are guiding him to sit on a chair and Banner is checking his pulse, as if he had ever dealt with a speedster before. The warmth of his fingers against his pulse is good, too good, and Pietro curses himself. He didn’t notice he was _this_ cold. He can’t be this cold.

“You’re too cold.” Banner states the obvious, still checking his pressure. Pietro wonders if he is doing this out of habit or if he can follow the aggressive rhythm of his hearbeat.

“You’ve got to slow down.” Carol says and Rogers agrees with her as he comes back to them with a glass of water.

“I’m fine.” Pietro says, but gladly takes the water and nods a thank you to Rogers. He stands up, only to be pushed back to the chair.

“Sorry.” She says sweetly. In that way that means she is about to punch the life out of him or something worse. Pietro thinks of the universe his sister created in which Carol and he were almost friends before he pushes this thoughts away, not wanting to dwell much on that place and those memories. They never _happened_ ; Carol and Pietro are just colleagues on different teams, not almost friends after a revolution. “Let me rephrase it: you _will_ slowdown.”

“That is an order.” Steve says, smiling fondly as if Pietro was a friend of his, like Stark or Danvers or Wilson.

“They’re right.” Banner agrees and releases his wrist. “You have to eat properly and sleep. It won’t do for you to simply pass out in the middle of nowhere. We probably won’t find you in time and we can’t afford a team to bring you back.”

Pietro hears this and wonders how many Avengers would _try_ to find him if that ever happened. He can only think of his students and his sister. Tigra and Pym too, because, wanting or not, they were _close_ to each other. Still, there is a point in stepping away before something like this happens, just to ensure he will live longer than anyone wants him to. “Fine. I will go home and sleep there.”

Rogers frowns at that. “Are you sure? We have plenty of food and beds here. We might need you.”

 “If you do, I will come as fast as I can. My apartment is not far and I am fast.”

Rogers opens his mouth to argue, for some reason umconfortable with the idea of letting Pietro out of his sight, but before any sound, Danvers puts her hand on his shoulder and smirks to Pietro. “Get some sleep, Quickie.”

“Do not call me ‘Quickie’.” Pietro says, but smirks back and leaves. Then, he comes back and takes as many pancakes with him as possible.

.

Pietro sighs happily when he closes the door.

His body temperature is higher than normal because of his metabolism; therefore he feels cold even when it is summer. His apartment is empty but warm. Before the storm hit, Pietro put blankets on all the windows to hold more warmth, knowing he would never feel warm again if he didn’t, and started to leave his radiator on because Stark could be many things, but Pietro still trusted his technologies enough to leave them on longtime after his departure. It wouldn’t catch fire, Stark said, and he is still telling the truth ( _when he does not, Pietro expects a new apartment and better equipment_ ). It’s a hazard, he knows and understands, but he can be selfish about this.

He also stocked food when the storm was detected. Plenty of food so he could run on the weather and still come back every now and then and eat. Food that is easy to make and contain proteins, sugar and fat that would keep his stomach and metabolism running until the worst of this weather, in a world where the snowstorm only covered New York City in ice. Nourishment that is also preferred by teenagers, because of Finesse and Striker, who were supposed to sleep there. Now she sleeps on a quinjet when the team she is ( _Pietro does not know which anymore_ ) goes from a place to another. Striker is stationed in Argentina together with Mockingbird.

Pietro, as he eats an abnormal amount of food as fast as he can so he can get some sleep, the pancakes only lasting half of the trip to his apartment, thinks that the world is truly going mad. The problem are not villains anymore, or threats from outer space. It's them. They are doing more harm than good against each other and the world, but maybe they never stopped fighting each other.

He feels safe inside his own house. The eyes that were watching him can't reach him there, protected by curtains and blankets. Still, he shivers from the cold. Pietro looks around, trying to see if there is a breach on his castle of warmth and when he finds none, he shrugs and decides that it must be on his head. He was always paranoid. So he goes to his bed, perfectly made so he just needs to lie down and close his eyes and does exactly that.

Pietro is glad Luna and Crystal do not live on Earth anymore. It means they are safe. He wonders where is Lorna and if he can take time tomorrow to look her. Wonders if Wanda is alright, in that horrible, dysfunctional team of hers. Hopes his father is well and protected from the storm too, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He sighs, eyes still closed. Because of that he does not see that his breath can be seen, even in all that warmth.

The cold always comes, reaching even the hottest places on Earth.

So does Bobby Drake.

And when Pietro finally opens his eyes, hours later, he opens it to ice.

Ice everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have finally decided to post. _On chapters_ because I haven't finished it yet ( _but I feel it is close_ ) and because I have to add some final touches.
> 
> This is the greatest thing I haver ever written in my life of ficwriter, yet. I have much worse plot planned, yes, but this one _I wrote_. With no fear. With such care I and yet I feel like I am walking on eggshells. I am obsessed with this story and refused to work on anything else until I finished. I have pages of rewritten storylines and arguments and notes, so much notes, I actually did a whole summary of Liu's arc, scene by scene, so I could change it smoothly. And all because I commented something to my friend and obsessed with this simple idea: what if Bobby Drake's monster, released by the _Death seed_ 's dark influence, was directly connected with the fact that he is gay (since his younger version came out)?
> 
> And here it is. My own personal monster.
> 
> I hope you guys like it.


	2. I'm the kind of kid that can't let anything go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The Mountain is always cold. Is always snow.” Drake whispers or maybe the snow around them whispers it to Pietro. Drake is everywhere, he remembers. Drake is a god in this moment and Pietro suffers with his attention. “And you were born inside it. You survived this coldness. You were made from it.” You were made for me, he does not say, but Pietro hears it anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the next chapter. Man, I made so many mistakes lol

He feels like a child, drapped in blankets and slowly walking, barefoot.

For a moment he thinks he is in a cave, but soon he notices that his bed is in front of what is supposed to be an open hallway, he thinks, also made of ice. It gives him chills that have nothing to do with the cold. It looks like there are no windows, no exit, but as soon as he starts walking, hand on one of the ice walls, he notices that there is another small cave, another _room_ , with some beds too. There are no blankets, there, however. It is empty and cold, like the whole place seemed to be.

Cold is an understatement, but Pietro is cold. So cold. Too cold. _Dangerously_ cold. The clothes he is wearing, the same he used when he went to bed ( _a new sweater, his warmest sweatpants, white socks_ ), do nothing to hold back cold this intense — cold and ice, everywhere. Pietro remembers his apartment, feeling the cold sip through his locked doors, leaving him to wonder how it could have gotten in if everything was still so warm, and he understands, though he doesn’t.

The truth is: all he can think is to run. Pietro wants to run, he wants to get out of here, but the floor is too slippery and his socks are nothing against all this ice. All he will do without shoes is bleed and not get far enough to escape Drake or find his way back to civilization. Pietro wonders for a moment if there _is_ an escape from Robert Drake. He is snow itself now and snow covers the world. Civilization and Avengers are the same as his socks in this place: nothing.

 _If it is Blake_ , he thinks, but knows it is. When you know someone and have been around them as they use their power, you _know_. This is Robert Drake, Iceman, in a way nobody ever thought it would be. Pietro adjusts the blankets around him, as if this would actually _help_ ; his breath comes in puffs; his legs are trembling. He feels trapped in ways he never thought he would be and asks himself if this is his punishment. To walk aimlessly through ice until he starves or freezes to death. Some would think it is fitting for all he has done; Pietro wonders if Drake is one of them.

There is another opening in the hallway. Pietro almost misses it when he passes by; everything is so exact the same. The light that comes from somewhere that seems so far away to him ( _what an irony_ ) tricks him more than helps. Suddenly his hand finds empty air and he stumbles on the blankets. He almost falls down. Pietro flinches, the burn in his hand telling him that he has just cut himself on the ice. He kneels then — Pietro manages to find a way to sit down on the blanket without uncovering himself, and just breaths. He waits until his feet are not aching anymore; waits until his hand stops bleeding or it subdues enough for him to not get distracted.

In this place, everything is unfamiliar. It makes Pietro wish he had not left the bed or even the room with the _beds_ , plural. It is hard to see shapes of ice and he does not recognize anything inside ( _when he saw what looked like beds, Pietro had to check it. It looked too surreal and for a moment he felt like Gold Locks_ ). The cold makes him feel sleepy, but hunger keeps him awake. The problem with his powers is that he must eat before he sleeps and when he wakes up, because of his metabolism.

That is when he hears it. The sound of ice breaking next to him, together with something that seems to crawl from the floor, or the walls — the echo and the panic make it impossible for him to pinpoint the exact place the sound comes from. Pietro shivers, wishes for a weapon, for some light, for actual strength, for a different power, even, but he is too tired, too hungry to do anything. He waits, hopeless, for something.

“Pietro.” The voice says. Drake’s voice, devoid of any emotion. “Bobby Drake awaits.”

“What?” He says, voice hoarse. “If you are not Drake, who are you?”

There is a pause. “I am ice. I am ice made of Bobby Drake.”

 _Sentient clones_ , Pietro thinks. _The eyes that were following me_. Robert Drake had all this power all this time. It is no wonder he fell so quickly, too fast for anyone to catch him before madness overcame him. Like Wanda.

The creature does not touch him, but approaches — Pietro can tell because when it does its cold punctures through the blankets like bullet wounds. Pietro breathes in and out before he gets up. Maybe he’ll have a chance to escape. Maybe he will have a chance to fight. Save Lorna. Die. Anything, any option is better than this.

“Where will you take me?”

“We will walk.” It says. “You will not survive becoming ice. You are barely alive _now_.”

Pietro flinches, pride hurt. The creature puts his hand on his back, like Crystal used to do to him when they were walking on Attilan, and guides him. By the time they reach the opening of the cave, Pietro is shivering with the intense cold that its simple touch brings him.

By the time they reach the opening of the cave, Pietro can hear two voices. One devoid of emotion, icy like the creature by his side; the other, familiar and dangerous. Cynical. Pietro wonders why she is here.

“ _Death. Bobby Drake is dying. The man he was. His soul. He's being eaten alive and he doesn't even know it._ ” The creature with _her_ says.

“ _So what?_ ” She always sounds so unwary, not caring for the words that she is hearing.

There is a pause before Drake’s clone talks again. “ _He loved you, once. Genuinely, without reservation. That doesn't have to matter to you... But it mattered to him. Pretty soon, though, he won't be capable of loving anyone ever again. He'll be dead inside. When that happens, the whole world will die with him. Ice, forever._ ”

“ _I hope you don't think I can save him._ ” She says, right in the moment Pietro and his own caretaker enter their view. The light hurts his eyes and he takes a step back before the creature by his side pushes him forward again.

“You can’t.” The clone with Mystique is exactly like Pietro’s. When Pietro approaches, forced, he turns to look at him. His eyes are dead, like his own body.

Mystique turns, ready to strike. She wears her normal costume, her legs and arms open. Pietro shivers for her.

“What is he doing here?” She asks, taking in Pietro’s presence with a look of disdain. He burns with shame. He must look pathetic to her — even more, he means, as Mystique never thought of Magneto’s twins as worthy of one or two compliments —, shivering and covered in blankets, trying so hard to survive this cold. Behind Mystique, behind her Drake’s clone, the opening of the caved place lets snow come inside it. The wind flaps his blankets and Pietro steps back to the hallway of ice. It was cold, but the wind did not reach him so fast. The hand on his back stops him on his tracks once again.

Pietro wishes he was strong enough to run. Run and never come back or come back with help, but there is no choice. There are _two_ Robert Drakes in front of him. Two, not one. They are somewhere he does not know and Pietro is already so cold and so hungry. Stepping out, he concludes, biting his lip, is truly impossible. He’d die before he reached _anywhere_.

And then he notices, at the side of the cave, two sleeping bags with two different people. Pietro’s heart skip a beat. “Lorna.” He whispers and forgets the cold, forgets the weakness, forgets the hungry. In the blink of an eye, he is by her side.

There is no polished ground like before and the snow soaks his socks and his blankets, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t _care_. She is so cold, so small. Lorna barely moves, barely breathes, and Pietro wants nothing more than to kill _everyone_ because of what they did to her. The woman by her side is one he recognizes briefly. Havok chose her instead of Lorrna, leaving her on the altar for this woman. Pietro does not know if they ever met in person, but he remembers her. Hated her for Lorna, before they even knew they were brothers — they were friends and they were teammates.

Robert Drake seems to have an obsession with women from his past, Pietro notices, but he still does not know why he would want _him_ here.

“She is safe.” The creature that led him through the hallway says before he disappears in the ice. There is left only one of Drake’s clone. He is looking at Pietro with an assessing expression.

“What is he doing here?” Mystique asks again. She backs away, suddenly threatened. Pietro does not know if because of him or the Drake that kidnapped all of them.

“You can’t save Bobby Drake, Mystique.” The creature says. “But he might.”

“What?” Pietro says, not understanding.

“I agree. _What_?” Mystique says, sneering. “Pietro Maximoff never saved anybody, only himself.”

Pietro scoffs. “You are one to talk. How is your son, by the way?” He asks and her face contorts with rage. “You did a great job keeping him alive.”

“You don’t have the right to talk about Kurt.” Mystique answers and her arms become snakes. Pietro does not stand a chance but, well, he won’t back down _now_. He never does, that’s the problem.

It happens to not be necessary. The creature that has Drake’s features but talks about Iceman on the third person, steps between them. “You may be our only hope.” He says to Pietro.

“Our only hope of what?”

“Of stopping Bobby Drake.”

Pietro tilts his head to one side and gets up with some difficulty. After, he will go back to the bed and lie down, Lorna with him ( _she’ll never leave his side again_ ), become warmer and think of a better plan that does not involve saving whatever this creature wants him to save. “What _are_ you?”

“We are parts of Bobby Drake. The parts of him that are still Bobby Drake. So we run. We hide. The parts that don't want to die... And that don't want the ones he loves to die.” The creature answers and Pietro narrows his eyes. Robert Drake is falling apart, bits of his memory and personality gaining sentient life. Like Maddrox, who would multiply himself and each would have a different personality, a small part that composed the original Multiple Man.

Still, it does not answer why he is here.

“Why are you so certain he doesn't already know we're here?” Mystique asks and Pietro notices he is already tired of her. She cannot be trusted. She never was trusted ( _not by him, but Drake seems to be awfully stupid when it comes to women_ ).

“How many memories can you recall at any given moment?” The part of Drake that took them asks her. “How much have you forgotten about your life, or even the last hour? We're an idea that slipped away. And we keep slipping away. He won't notice—”

There is a tremor and Pietro falls on the ice. Mystique is capable of keeping her feet and she smirks at them. “You were saying?” She says, over all the sound.

Pietro brings the two sleeping women near him and holds on to them. Tries to cover them, in case the cave collapses. Mystique is smirking, looking around, mesmerized by the tragedy. Pietro rolls his eyes. They should be trying to help each other, not making everything worse by wanting the enemy to come after them, he thinks absently, and then the cave collapses all around them, like he predicted. Ice does not hit them, however. The wind does; cutting his face and forcing Pietro to useless retreat into himself, so the sudden drop of temperature, worse than ever, doesn’t weaken him as much as it can. He does not leave Lorna’s side, but she does not seem to notice what is happening around her. The other woman does not move either.

When he looks up, he thinks: _Never mind_. There is no escaping _this_.

Not with Robert Drake, size of a giant, holding them in the palm of his hand. Literally.

“No! Listen to us! It doesn't have to be this way!” The last good part of Robert Drake says, but the booming voice of the _original_ Drake breaks its argument.

“Enough.” Drake says, his voice strong and cold, not at all like the one Pietro ever heard. Not from Iceman. Funny, soft, positive, even stupid Iceman. Pietro misses him so much now. “I'm done with you. I'm done with all the voices of my past.”

 _My יהוה, he’ll kill every one of them_. The worst part is that Pietro does not even know why he’s _here_.

“Even me?” Mystique asks, sounding confident in ways she only does when she is sure she will get her way. If Drake fell for her ( _what an idiot; she slept with Sabretooth and Wolverine_ ), she surely will.

“Mystique.” Drake greets her, voice devoid of emotion, still, but with a hint of curiosity. Pietro rolls his eyes. Still Drake, it seems.

“Hello, Bobby. I like the new look.” Mystique tells him, smiling. Drake looks at her for a moment, before his eyes turn to Pietro and Lorna and the other woman. He opens his mouth and closes, surprised. Mystique turns to look at them and she frowns. Like Pietro, she doesn’t know why Drake is so off put all of sudden.

“Pietro.” He says and Pietro shivers.

.

Pietro is not shivering anymore by the time he is put down on the snow. He feels he is slowly losing control of his body and that never is a good sign. He wants to scream and shout for the world to understand that because of his high metabolism, he feels colder than the rest of the world. It’s pure _physics_. By the time people are done with this glacial age, he’ll be dead.

He stops thinking about that. Maybe Drake _is_ trying to kill him after all. Maybe that is why they are all by themselves ( _Mystique did not enjoy being left at another cave. Pietro did not like to leave Lorna and the other with her_ ). Either way, Pietro does not want to find out so soon. For his killer, it may be a few minutes; for him, hours of a torture until his end.

Drake watches him for a moment before becoming smaller. His ability with ice, his new connection with his powers, shows how strong he is. An omega level indeed, Pietro muses, and wonders if this was Wanda before she attacked the Avengers. Seeing the world small when she herself was a giant. No wonder she lost her mind. No wonder all others who touched the Phoenix ( _until Jean finally became one with it_ ) lost it too.

When he becomes the same size as Pietro, however, he turns his body into flesh and blood — not the form he normally uses it. It makes Pietro flinch and want to run, now, more than ever, because his eyes— By g—d, there is nothing left of him. Robert Drake is gone; Iceman prevails.

“Do you recognize it?” Drake says, his arms opening as a mean to say to Pietro to take in the landscape around him.

Pietro does. Turns his head, then his body with too much difficulty for his tastes, in the direction Drake is looking. He sees white everywhere, covering everything, and yet it does not take much for him to see what Drake wants him to see. His breath catches on his throat and Pietro closes his eyes. Covered in ice or in flames, he would always recognize Transia. The biggest mountain of the vale by his right is the Wundagore Mountain, still as beautiful as before the snowstorm.

“Yes.” He says, his voice not wavering, though is slurred, for he does not feel sadness; only anger. He will _crush_ Robert Drake when he gets the chance. “Yes, I recognize.”

“It’s beautiful. The Wundagore Mountain always had snow, I remember. One of the few mountains that are forever frozen.” Drake says. “I grew up in Port Washington, with my father and my mother. He always thought I was not good enough, especially when I got my powers. My mother always told me he was hard because he _cared_.” There is a sneer in his voice and in his face. _Devils_ , Pietro thinks, _father issues._

His body is crumbling, the cold being too much. His hands are numb, his skin getting even paler, his breath is shallow, and he feels like he will fall asleep at any given moment.

“What do I have to do with all this, Drake?” Pietro asks, _finally_. “Your other part took Mystique, Lorna and that woman because they were special to you. What am I doing here?”

Drake smirks. Not the flirting smirk he usually gave women, not the confident smirk he shared with Barton on that day at Avengers Academy. A smirk like Mystique’s. Like Pietro’s own smirk. “You are special, Pietro.” Drake says and comes closer. Pietro holds himself in place only because he cannot move anymore. “You were always so mine that you were born here, in Transia.”

Ice wraps them and they sink in it before becoming _it_. Before Pietro screams, his lungs and throat are taken from him, together with his limbs. When he is capable of opening his eyes, the scream burning in his lungs as if he did indeed shared it with the world, he is at the top of Wundagore Mountain. “In the Wundagore Mountain.” Drake finishes, shouting for the whole world to hear. He is laughing, that cold, emotionless laugh that few people were capable of giving. How did he fell this much without anyone _noticing_?

In an instant, Drake is kneeling by Pietro’s side and the cold becomes worse. His clothes are unfit for such weather and Drake himself is ice, pure ice. He is frostbite in the form of a man and maybe g—d is punishing for all his lies and sins. It surely feels like hell.

“I don’t understand.” Pietro says, or think he says. He is so _tired_. All he wants to do is close his eyes and sleep. The man ( _not a man, not a mutant, something_ else) next to him lifts one of his hands and touches Pietro’s chin. It only makes him feel worse. It feels like Pietro is hitting a wall. He feels tired, he feels _exhausted_. All this cold and all this mystery are killing him.

“The Mountain is always cold. Is always snow.” Drake whispers or maybe the snow around them whispers it to Pietro. Drake is everywhere, he remembers. Drake is a god in this moment and Pietro suffers with his attention. “And you were born inside it. You survived this coldness. You were made from it.” You were made for me, he does not say, but Pietro hears it anyway.

 _No_ , Pietro wants to say. _I was made of my Father’s pain and my Mother’s hope. I was made like Wanda. I was made mutant and I made myself hero. I was made evil and I am fighting it. I was made romani and I became_ Quicksilver.

However the words, like the world around him, die in his throat the moment Robert Drake leans in and kisses him. And as if he was copying Rogue, he takes Pietro’s last strength with the faintest touch of lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I may have said before, some parts of this story connect directly to the arc in question. _However_ , I don't think I said that it contains some of the dialogues of the comic. I am still thinking of a way to point it out, though.
> 
> Thank you guys for the kudos and the comments! <3


	3. next to heartbeats where you shouldn't dare sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Why me? I cannot be the only man you ever felt attraction for.”_   
>  _“You are not.” Drake agrees. “But you are different, you are special.”_   
>  _“How?”_   
>  _“You were the first.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for this chapter: rape/dubious consent

Pietro wakes up in a warm room. The bed is soft, as soft as the one he had in his apartment, but the smell is different and that is how he is still in his nightmare. It smells like dust, like something that has not been used in a few days. Pietro wrinkles his nose and wills himself to get up and do some reckoning and get some food. Clothes first, he thinks absently, as he notices he is only in his boxer.

He remembers the kiss — how could he not? — and wonders if this gives him an advantage or not. Then, he sits up on the bed and has his answer: yes, he does.

The room is expensive. Dark, warm colors that match the tone of the wood — expensive, its smell still filling the stale air of the room — and that tell the story about the owners of the room: successful, happy ( _the room has a personality_ _and everything matches, what means they are on the same page — Crystal and Pietro had a room like this; in comparison, Lorna and Alex’s spoke different things; Wanda and Vision’s room never had these much personal things_ ), with good taste. There is a fireplace in the room, fire crackling, its color matching the curtains and even the dark wood. There is a beautiful woodcraft that Pietro cannot see clearly from this distance, but that he already admires it.

The carpet is white and Pietro sighs as his feet touch it. After all that ice, anything that gives warmth instead of taking it is more than welcome. At the nightstand, Pietro notices the picture of two women, one using a kimono, the other a hijab, smiling at the camera, wedding bangs on their waving hands. Pietro takes the photograph and wonders if they are still alive. Hopes they are. They seem happy.

He gets up and looks around. The closet ( _one, giant, beautiful, illuminated closet. Wanda would have loved the colors; Lorna would have loved the clothes_ ) are filled with women clothes, of course, including different hijabs and kimonos that Pietro does not dare to touch. The two cultures clash and match, like the women in the pictures, and he feels like he is an intruder. Knows he is.

Of the things he can use and that means no disrespect, Pietro takes a big t-shirt that has seen better days, socks and a nylon jacket that fits him. It is always weird to use other people’s clothes, but he had boyfriends and, well, he cannot choose anything right now. He’ll have to make it do. Pietro holds the jacket close and steps out, wondering where he will find pants.

The question answers itself when cold reaches him, even with the fireplace on. Sitting on the bed, the doors of the room open, is Robert Drake, still in human ( _but not warmer_ ) form, smirking at Pietro. By his side, there are a number of clothes that Pietro recognizes as his own.

“And here I thought you were in the shower,” Drake says and Pietro narrows his eyes. _Liar_ , Pietro thinks, _you always knew where I was_. “You found things to wear in a woman’s closet.” He sounds surprised and Pietro just scoffs.

“ _Women’s_ closet.” He corrects Drake and the man ( _not a man_ ) smiles more. “I only took the basic. I’m adaptable. Besides, there is nothing wrong with women’s clothes.”

Drake’s eyes are sharp. “I brought yours.”

Pietro nods and comes closer. There is no reason to keep his distance if Drake can just appear right in front of him. The movement, however, seems to make Iceman approve something. “I noticed it.” He says and bends a little to take the pants. “Thank you.” He adds though he was kidnapped and almost died of cold; bringing Pietro’s own, warmer clothes would be the least Drake could do.

Drake grabs his wrist and ice takes Pietro’s form. He stops immediately, wondering if he did something _wrong_. He looks at Iceman and his smile is gone. “Your friends were waiting for me.” He says and Pietro takes a moment to answer him.

“What friends?” Pietro asks because it has been a long time since he called someone like this. Even longer since the last time he truly had one.

Drake laughs a hollow laugh that makes Pietro shiver more. The hand in his wrist takes all the warmth as if it was winter itself. It may as well be. “The _Avengers_.” He answers and Pietro purses his lips.

“They are my teammates.” Pietro corrects him and Drake nods once, as if he is dropping the subject, before he lets go of Pietro. He takes his pants and puts them on. Doesn’t change the rest because he does not want to. He is uncomfortable with wearing someone else’s clothes — someone who Drake might have killed it — but does not want to look grateful as if all he wanted were his clothes back. _Fuck_ his damned clothes. He wants his sister back, awake and well. He wants his freedom back.

He wants his world back.

“They told me to give you back,” Drake says when Pietro settles down next to him, pants on and folding his clothes. “I did not know you were this popular.”

“I’m not.” He says and the truth tastes bitter in his mouth. “But I’m still an Avenger.”

“I’m still an X-Man,” Drake says, but his voice seems to make it a question, as if he is wondering.

“Probably.” Pietro answers. “The Avengers and the X-Men are very forgiving.”

There is a moment of silence between them and Pietro does not know how to fill it. He does not try either, just looks at his feet and bounces a little in place. He wants food, _needs it_ , but he wants to run too. The hunger is the same.

He gets none. Not at this moment, not when Drake places his hand on Pietro’s chin and turns him. Not when Drake’s cold breath mix with Pietro’s and he leans in to kiss him. Not when Pietro opens his mouth, more in surprise than anything else.

Drake just takes it. His tongue sweeps right in, cold against Pietro’s. Pietro shivers, thinks if he can reject him; thinks if he can push Drake and tell him _no_. Thinks if he can kill him. Thinks why the hell Drake wants so badly to kiss him when he can have Mystique. When he is kidnapping ( _taking back_ ) his ex-girlfriends. Drake could have let them go, let them shiver, after he eliminated that part of him that still cared for all of them ( _cared for Pietro too; took him, gave him a bed when the others got sleeping bags and Mystique got nothing; made a palace of ice for him, him at the center_ ), but he took them all in his hand and transported Mystique, Lorna and that other woman ( _Pietro needs to know her name. She needs to be more than her gender; more than a sleeping object_ ) to somewhere before he flew Pietro to Transia.

He feels Drake his own weight to push Pietro against the bed and instantly Pietro puts a hand between them and pushes. This cannot be happening, he thinks, and his mind remembers the statistics for _rape_ of the past ten years. A part of him thinks: _better you than Lorna_. He licks his lips — they are so _cold_ — and looks at Drake’s eyes. The smile he had before is gone and his eyes are hard. Pietro feels small and afraid, but still has enough stupidity and pride to ask: “Why?”

The question catches Drake by surprise and he laughs softly before he gets off of Pietro. Pietro sighs in relief but part of him knows — just knows — that this isn’t over.

“Why what?” Drake asks and sits in a chair near one of the closed curtains. Red so strong it reminds Pietro of his sister. Wanda.

“Why are you doing this? Why me? Why was I taken?” Pietro asks, finally. “Why am I _here_? You have Lorna and you have Mystique and that other woman—”

“Her name is Annie.” Drake says, not as harsh as he would if he were— If he were _Bobby_. Something is wrong with him and it cannot be just _natural_. Nobody that tried that much to do good falls this bad and Robert Drake sounds too sane for him to be like Wanda.

“Annie.” Pietro says and repeats: “Annie.” Her name rolls on his tongue and relief settles down. She has a name now; a name for a sleeping face. It matters. It _matters_. “They are sleeping and Mystique is not here. _Why am I_ _here?_ ”

Drake does not even blink. “Because I was done being the nice man, the good man. I want more, Pietro. I want more.” His eyes shine red, like Wanda’s. Like Jean’s. Like Summers’s. He gets up and Pietro flinches, though he relaxes when Drake starts pacing. “Why are you here? Why are the _others_ here? That part of me — that _weak_ part of me — wanted to save who I loved before. You all. All my life I ever wanted to be _loved_. I see not this is not going to happen. Kitty still has feelings for her ex. Opal wants to move on. God only knows what Lorna and Annie ever saw in me. Other than good ‘friend’ material. I’m tired of being just a friend.” He finishes, _finally_ , and looks at Pietro, waiting for a reaction. Pietro glares at him.

“Stay away from my _sister_.” Pietro threatens. Drake just laughs.

“I already have her, the way I want her. She is mine now, Pietro. So is Annie. Mystique… She wants something for me, I know. I will have Katherine and Opal eventually. I will have the world too. And they will see.” _Me_ , Pietro completes for Drake, in his own mind because he is not suicidal — not that much. And Pietro gets it—

—No, he does not. Though he does understand the line of thought. Robert Drake is tired of being second place, second choice for the entire world. He wants it to show everyone they were wrong. Pietro understands this desire to show the world something, but they are different in objectives: Pietro wants the world to see he is _good_ — Luna most of all. Robert Drake and he dug their own graves when it comes to their relationships ( _Drake collects strained relationships with women; Pietro with his family — Wanda needs space, his nephews do not recognize him, Crystal has moved on long before they divorced, his father does not bother with him, Lorna does not want to allow him in and Luna… Luna does not see him as a father anymore_ ), but only one of them acknowledges it.

 _Typical Drake_ , Pietro thinks, and when the man stops pacing and _talking_ ( _a monologue, Jesus Christ_ ), he asks again: “What does that have to do with me?”

Drake gets closer, eyes still so cold and so superior. “I tried hard. To be a good man, a good hero, a good X-Men. A good _son_.” He says and touches Pietro’s cheek with two fingers, before he slips it down, to Pietro’s throat and collarbone. When Pietro shivers because of the cold — it’s like being outside _again_ —, Drake’s eyes darken. “That I pushed aside my desires. What I actually wanted. But not anymore. Now I can have everything. And I’ll take what I want. I’ll take this whole world, and everyone in it. It’s mine now. It always was. I just didn’t realize it.”

And it makes sense — it makes so much sense. Not all fathers were mutants; many were prejudice against. Against everything that was so un-American ( _that was not white, catholic, straight, cisgendered, even male_ ). Robert Drake only ever wanted to please everyone. It makes so much sense now.

“You like men.” Pietro says, an understatement that Drake does not correct him. “Why me? I cannot be the only man you ever felt attraction for.” _You can’t fall for me_ , Pietro thinks. _We barely interacted with each other_.

“You are not.” Drake agrees. “But you are different, you are special.”

“How?”

“You were the first.” Drake says and he crouches in front of Pietro. Takes his hand. Pietro blinks slowly. Closes his eyes and opens them, resigned with the touches. With what is being said to him. “You were there before I caused an avalanche and froze the thoughts. Or tried to. Ignored them until I barely noticed when I felt attraction. You are something else that no other men ever was.”

Drake leans in and kisses Pietro again, puts his hands on his knees and Pietro sees the threat that Drake probably does not see himself: move and I’ll freeze you. Move and you’ll never run again. Pietro complies, because not even he is crazy enough to defy a madman when there is no chance in a fight. So Pietro opens his mouth and lets Drake take whatever he wants from it. Every breath and every taste, until he breaks the kiss.

When he does, Pietro sighs, the ice freezing his breath. They look at each other before Pietro asks: “What am I, Robert?” First name, because the situation asks for it. Drake smiles, an almost genuine one, as if he were trying. His eyes shine red again.

“Regret.” He says and Pietro swallows the lump in his throat. This cannot be good. There is no escape from this.

“That part of me took you because it knew this. It felt this too. And I have tried to all these women. Opal, Annie, Lorna. Mystique. Katherine. But I was always the second choice and I always thought that maybe, if I had chosen _you_ , this would never have happened.”

“You should have tried.” Pietro says, because there is nothing else to say than confirm this. He is more than trapped in this. He is walking on the thinnest ice there is, a line in which it is bad ahead, but there is no turning back and the fall — everything can happen in the fall.

“I know.” Drake says and smiles. “What do you want, Pietro?” His face is close again, so close and Pietro knows what he wants: he wants to run. He wants to leave. He wants to destroy this man.

He can’t.

Pietro closes his eyes for less than a second and makes his decision. He leans in and kisses Drake, initiates the kiss that seals his destiny — for now.

He does not have a choice. He says no, he may be killed right here, right now. He says no, He may become like Lorna. He may _threaten_ her well-being.

He says ( _just said_ ) yes and he has a chance. Of surviving this. Of saving his sister. Of taking care that she won’t be harmed. He can shield her, better than he can avenge Lorna. He was always good at sacrifice.

Besides, he has a chance to _stop_ him. Better than any other team.

( _“You can’t save Bobby Drake, Mystique.” The creature says. “But he might.”_ )

Drake moans in his mouth and launches forward. His two hands find the back of his knees and pull them towards his body, enough to make Pietro fall on the mattress. Enough for Drake to cover his body with his. The cold is so intense Pietro has to break the kiss to breathe. His chest heavies, he feels like he has run a million marathons. Drake smiles, pleased with his effect on him and Pietro wants so much to ask if he did not notice that this cold, _this_ is killing him. Wants to ask if he _cares_.

Instead, he kisses Drake’s chin, then his throat and bites softly, only to notice that his body is pure ice. He changes tactics and licks the uncovered skin until Drake decides what he wants to do to him.

He’ll give it to him. Whatever it is. For now.

.

Drake is clumsy and eager, doesn’t know where to start. His touch is cold and makes Pietro shiver, his temperature dropping dangerously. Selfish as he is, Drake probably thinks the shivers are from pleasure. Pietro hates him for it. For this.

Still, Pietro pretends. Forces touches and gasps and moans. He asks for more when all he wants is to ask Drake to stop. _Stop, it’s killing me_ , he wants to say. _Stop, you’re killing me_ , but what comes out of his mouth are forced _Robert, ah, more, Robert. Please._ And all the way Pietro thanks G—d Drake is not a telepath, for he would sure notice it is not him Pietro is thinking of to make himself come. He thinks of Stark’s arms and Rogers’s thighs; Barton’s flirty smirk that makes so many promises; Crystal’s taste as he went down on her; Wolverine’s rough fingers digging in his hips; Rand’s hips and Cage’s hold—

Pietro comes with a muffled cry that he himself barely hears it.

.

Pietro wakes up warm again. Warm and naked and sore. The two smiling women whose house he is living as a prisoner tell him that he still is in his nightmare. Pietro groans, sinks his face on the pillow and breathes in and out, slowly, and basks in the silence, in the warmth. Then, he gets up to find something to eat and explore where exactly he is.

His clothes are in the closet. They do not take as much space as the previous owners — _owners_ , his mind supplies. He will not stay long and they are still alive —, but it seems that Drake took some of the clothes to make space for his. _Robert_ , he corrects. It is easier to call him this name if he uses it in his own head. Not the kimonos or the hijabs, though — the first is deep in the closet, together with the nightgowns, which shows they are there for important occasions —, and the hijabs have drawers for their own. Pietro sighs, relieved. As long as these things are not touched.

Pietro takes the same clothes he was wearing the other day — to be a little spiteful, but always so he can pretend what happened after he had dressed did not happen — and goes to the bathroom.

It’s big. Smaller than the closet, but it’s still big. Enough for the shower and the bathtub to be in two different locations. There is two mirrors with different makeup for them both. Pietro smiles, cannot help it, to see how these women never gave up their identities and still made it work with their married life. Part of Pietro wants to meet them. The other part wants to forget everything he knew about them — it will be easier to deal with the aftermath, he is sure of it.

He takes a shower, marveled that there still is hot water in this world and thinks that this was probably thanks to Dr— Robert. His stomach curls in disgust and Pietro wants to throw up. It only means that he wants Pietro to keep living. He tries to make it sound positive ( _he has a chance, then. To stop Robert Drake_ ), but fails. Decides to try again after eating.

The house is big. Giant, even, if compared with Pietro’s apartment. It is decorated with a more oriental style that is breached by some occidental furniture. Still, they found peace in their cultures and the American culture and Pietro wonders how long it took them to accomplish this. This house, this style, this happy marriage in which there is harmony. Their jobs, their lives, each other. Themselves.

To think about them, it soothes him. They remind him of a time when Wanda and he would have had a house exactly like that, Romani everywhere. Where they would complete each other in equal and different ways these two women complete before him, as he walks inside their house — an invasion of privacy by someone who never wanted to be here in the first place.

Pietro wants to know their names and knows that they are alive. They have to. It’s because of them that the Avengers exist. It’s because of them that Pietro closed his eyes and left his body behind, to Drake to have. The X-Men and the Avengers still hadn’t found a way to stop Drake, but Pietro— Pietro at least knows where he will be. He can prepare. He can ready himself.

The house has five more rooms besides the one where Pietro was — the main room for Robert Drake’s main affection ( _his stomach curls at this new definition of himself_ ) —, which means that the couple either had a big family or wanted one. It would suit them. Of the five, three have their doors open and in one of them a bed is undone, which indicates it was Mystique’s — not coincidentally, it’s the second largest room and Pietro rolls his eyes at that. He has this feeling she did not appreciate the fact she didn’t get the main room —, which means that she is already up. The house is quiet, however, too quiet even for someone like Mystique, who learned how to walk like other people and make as much sound as a leaf falling from the tree and onto the ground in her original form.

Because of that, Pietro cannot help it; he opens the two closed doors. And like Bluebeard’s closet, Pietro finds the two other parts of Iceman’s past that were collected. Two women who preferred the same man instead of Robert Drake and that now are forced to be Sleeping Beauty, waiting for a kiss from their prince, that has already moved on.

 _That’s why I’m here_ , Pietro thinks, checking Annie’s pulse when he is in her bedroom, but staying longer on Lorna’s, his fingers tracing her face and untangling the knots in her hair, wondering if she knows what is going on around her. If she is dreaming or if she is afraid. When his stomach grumbles, reminding Pietro that it has been long since he has eaten ( _though not too long. The day before he wasn’t as hungry as he was when he woke up in that palace of ice_ ), he gets up. Instead of leaving the kitchen immediately, he walks towards the window and opens the curtains, hoping for a street or a location. Or New York. He finds only ice and no trace of life in that desolation.

For a moment Pietro feels like he truly is the only hope the world had and wonders if that will be enough. If _he_ will be enough. Wonders if he is up to the challenge. If, after years helping save the world with others he can do it all on his own.

It’s easier, he thinks as he leaves the room and closes the door, to destroy a world than saving it.

.

The kitchen has enough food to keep Pietro well-fed for three days — five, even, if he eats moderately and does not do much exercise or burn his calories facing the cold. The house, however, is warm and he is a prisoner of sorts, so maybe he should be spiteful and let Drake deal with the end of the food, three days from now.

He stops for a moment and asks himself how much longer he really thinks he will stay there. How much longer the world can survive in absolute zero.

 _Five days_ , he decides, _are more than enough to end this._

He prepares enough food for a small army, but not only for himself. Mystique and Drake ( _Robert, he has to call him Robert_ ) will arrive from wherever they went and they will probably be hungry. Mystique will be. Pietro highly doubts Dr— Robert will eat something, doubts he _can_ eat something in this state, but it is better to make himself look considerate and that he _thinks_ of Robert Drake. Thinks of him enough to make food for three. This is all Robert wants, Pietro reminds himself, to matter for someone. No second place.

By the time they arrive — Robert and Mystique, ice penetrating the warm house, making Pietro shudder not only because of the cold —, Pietro is done eating and has already put his dishes away. Pietro licks his lips and swallows, tries not to think of what Iceman wanted from him and tries to act a little more like himself, though still available for Drake ( _it’s Robert, youmoanedRobertyoucancallhimRobert_ ). Robert, who enters the kitchen as if he always knew Pietro was there ( _he did_ ) and Mystique follows him a few moments later, trying to cover her discomfort into being turned into ice with a smirking expression — she is shivering, though. “Good morning.” She says, yellow eyes shining as she sees the food. Pietro understands. Cold always makes you hunger; being turned into ice is like being starved for weeks. “Am I a fool to hope it’s still warm?”

“On this weather? Yes, you are.” Pietro says and when Robert looks at him, he just lifts an eyebrow. Robert smiles at that and approaches, making Pietro school his own expression the best way he can so that he acts normal and inviting, not shying away from his cold touch. It seems to work, because soon Robert kisses him as if he was just arriving home to his husband. The thought makes Pietro feel sick.

Pietro shudders at the touch, the lips an active memory from last night and the cold an active memory of the past week. The death and desolation he saw. The fear of the people when they started noticing the Avengers were too busy keeping them alive because they didn’t know how to stop this. When Robert Drake steps away, Pietro fakes a pleased smirk at the kiss. At the cold. “Where were you?” He asks and glances to Mystique, that ignores him in order to heat up food. Her mouth is set at an ugly angle, like she is trying to not snarl at Pietro, and that is always bad news.

Mystique is always bad news and Robert Drake should know better.

“Making plans.” Robert answers and sits next to Pietro.

“I was making some of my own too.” He says and Mystique stiffs from where she is. Pietro smirks. “I’d like to run.” He explains to Robert.

It is most weird to have to ask permission to _run_. But this is Drake’s world now and he is Drake’s house ( _that actually belong to two beautiful, smart and talented women that love each other and seem utterly happy and comfortable inside their own house in ways both Crystal and he never could manage_ ) and is he has to play a ridiculous, shameful game of Simon Says, so be it.

Drake smirks at him, that cold one he must have learned with Mystique, and says: “You can run around the house. I’d like to see that.”

 _You’d like to watch_ , Pietro thinks and rage burns inside him. Now, not only he has to perform happiness and love, not only he has to perform during _sex_ , he has also to perform as he runs. He wants to smash Drake’s face on the counter until all the ice breaks and falls apart. “Explain a little better, Bobby.” Mystique says and turns to Pietro. She is smirking. Pleased by his clipped wings. “I wouldn’t go outside if I were you, Pietro.” She explains sweetly. “The tendency is to get colder.”

Pietro stays silent for a moment. “That would kill everyone.” He turns to Drake. Robert. “That would kill _everyone_.”

Mystique makes a sound with her throat that sounds non-committal. “Well, not _everyone_. Some will survive. Bobby can’t bear to be alone.”

“For a little longer.” Robert says, not even sounding… _Anything_. Pietro feels sick.

Mystique smirks as she sits opposite to them on the counter. “If that’s what makes you sleep at night, _sure_.”

Pietro feels trapped. Like those times in elevators, in hospital beds, in Inhuman’s ceremonies. He wants to scream that they shouldn’t discuss something like that as if it was _nothing_. How can they not care? How can they not even blink or look ashamed that their decisions may kill everyone? Because, yes, Mystique isn’t the one causing the ice, but she’s not stopping this either. She is gaining something from all this death. All this destruction.

 _Power_ , comes the answer. Power, that is what she always wanted to have.

Pietro looks at Robert until he notices and then leans in towards him to steal a kiss from Pietro. Pietro closes his eyes, and notices how Drake wants him, but does not need him and how this phrase also applies to the world. _You are a bomb, Robert_ , Pietro thinks and his heart sinks when he notices that maybe what happened the other day was in vain. That his sacrifice was for nothing. Drake will either kill everyone when he emotionally detaches itself from the rest or he will leave some people behind, his ( _past_ ) lovers included. And Pietro. _But what if he does not need me anymore?_ Pietro wonders. What if he gets tired of him?

He thinks of the knives he saw around the kitchen and thinks of grabbing one, stabbing Drake until… Until what? He is pure ice, not flesh anymore, not even when he is in his human form. What then? What works against winter itself? What works against the strongest ice? If Drake is the mountain and the storm at the same time?

Drake leans in again and kisses Pietro’s throat, licking a stripe of pale flesh and Pietro shudders, notices this is a repetitive response and thinks of a better one. He moans and hopes it does not sound as much as fake to _Robert_ ’s ears as they sound to his own. But Robert is a fool and Robert accepts his false reaction by sneaking a hand inside Pietro’s shirt to trace his back with his cold, long fingers. Pietro swallows and touches Drake’s hair, urging him to keep kissing him, to do something _more_ even though this is a lie. A ruse.

Robert bites him, strong enough to make Pietro gasp and once again he notices that this, this is the only way to defeat Robert. He wants Pietro to enter, even though he knows Pietro is dangerous and malicious, a virus instead of a blessing. Pietro has torn many people apart, including his own wife, his own daughter, his own _sister_ for his own purpose. He is the cautionary tale, the one they tell about to young mutants. Deceiving and manipulative, even if not on purpose. Bobby Drake must have heard it all and yet he is here, expecting the fall.

He can give him that.

 Pietro’s eyes lock with Mystique’s and she smiles approvingly before slipping out of the room with a “Have fun, boys.” Pietro’s lips tremble at that, and he holds his breath for the change in the air that indicates Robert Drake’s wishes. Last time, it was chilling and inescapable. The air all around was a threat and Pietro— Pietro gave in, for his own safety and of others. He was a doll, thinking of others and no one as he left his body for the ice to eat.

This time Robert wants more participation. He knows because Pietro has had boyfriends, men, lays. He can read them well, when they want nothing but sex or they have been waiting for this for far too long.

Robert kisses Pietro harshly and he lets him. He opens his mouth and lets his fingers wander down, down, down— Robert breaks the kiss with a gasp, but keeps Pietro’s mouth open with one finger and when he licks the tip of it, Robert shivers and he understands.

Pietro drops to his knees as fast as he can — not because he wants to do it, but because his legs were about to give in anyway ( _this is too much for him_ ) — and opens Drake’s ( _Robert’s_ ) fly with trembling fingers. It’s clumsy and scary, but Robert doesn’t seem to mind. He only cares to be sucked off, pressing himself against Pietro’s lips, _demanding_ them to open.

And he does. Pietro opens his mouth, closes his eyes and pretends he wants to do this. It’s a foreign feeling to him as he was never fond of performing oral sex on men, but it’s nothing he hasn’t done before — the pretending, the oral sex. Pietro has always been good at pretending he didn’t want his father’s attention or that he was fine being hated as long as Wanda was fine.

He tips his head to one side, sucks the tip with a care he doesn’t really feel as he strokes the base of Robert’s cock, licks the pre-come, swallows it, swallows him, chokes on him, does everything he can to make Robert Drake come as fast as possible, knowing this taste will never leave his mouth anymore. It’s like poison, but it’s not enough to kill him. Pietro still doesn’t know what is worse.

When it’s over, when Robert presses Pietro’s head against his cock when he comes and forces him to swallow, he falls on his knees, his forehead against Pietro’s before he closes his eyes and kisses him in his mouth. It’s brief, thankfully, and like a child Robert makes a face at the bitter taste of his own come. Then, he helps Pietro stand and holds him for a long moment, kissing his neck with small pecks in a kitchen that doesn’t belong to him, while the world freezes over.

Pietro averts his eyes from the window that shows them as anything but loving. A normal couple in their house, and not a captive and a monster in the house of others. His discomfort, however, becomes panic. Robert, who was just a moment ago kissing Pietro’s collarbone, his hands on his hips, freezes in place and tightens his grip on Pietro’s body. “Robert?” He asks, frowning, and notices how easy his name rolls off his tongue, even with his breath becoming visible because of Iceman’s cold presence — the cold returning in full force, as Robert changes from flesh to ice. Doesn’t like that one bit.

 _Drake_ pulls away and looks at the windows of the kitchen, the snow raging outside as usual for the past week. Week. Pietro wants to laugh. He does not know how much time he has been away. Wonders if the outside world lost itself in time while counting the snowflakes that fell from the sky.

“I found the rest.” Robert Drake says, sneering at the snow.

“The rest of what?” Mystique asks, near him. She is interested and fed. She is ready to strike. To do something _dangerous_. Pietro wonders if she even cares that her own species is dying out there.

“The rest of Bobby Drake. They are out there, hunting. Trying to save the rest.”

Pietro’s breath catches in his throat. He does not need an answer to know who ‘the rest’ is. There are six beds: one for a regret, one for an almost lover, two for women who rejected him, two that are unoccupied ( _one for a liar, another for the current lover, but Pietro still does not know this_ ).

“Did they get them?” Pietro asks, worried. He is not sure if he is worried about the fact that the parts of Drake failed to do it or succeed. Both are horrible options — they do not deserve Lorna’s destiny, but if Pietro figures it out how to awake them, he has more advantage ( _Mystique is useless for things like saving the world_ ).

“No, they failed.” Robert says, a mysterious tone in his voice. When he turns to them both, he is smiling. Even Mystique takes a step back. “Now it’s my turn.”

In the blink of an eye, ice takes him away and leaves them with cold so strong, so dark, so dangerous, so hopeless that Pietro wonders why people think hell should be _hot_.

.

Pietro runs around the house like a pet and Mystique stays in her bedroom like a teenager, reading books. They don’t interact, they don’t talk, they don’t do anything but ignore each other.

Mystique plans what she will do when more than half of the world is gone and the last creatures on Earth are hers to rule. Her deal with Bobby, made as he took her to space and showed her a planet so cold not even Thanos could have made himself. Mystique does not plan on taking Pietro out, because she knows this will come eventually. Bobby is mesmerized now, but Bobby always is when he meets a person. And just like that, later, _always_ , Bobby is disappointed and heartbroken. This time, however, the broken heart won’t be his. She has seen it, already, what Bobby will do to him ( _did to him and she never thought he would be this much of a monster, but he is,_ he is now). Mystique can pick up the pieces, but she’ll stay out of the way.

Pietro plans what he will do when the time comes. Because he knows there will be a moment when Robert Drake will be vulnerable, between the end and a new beginning, _his_ new beginning. The moment when the heroes of the world stand up to him and fight and he is both at his worst and at his best. Pietro can play his part and eliminate the threat. First, he has to make sure Mystique will not make Drake’s mind that he is a liability and is only fooling him. It is the truth, just like the fact it is true that she wants something from him and not just the power. Not just surviving and staying on the winner’s side. Something to do with his new persona.

Here’s what they don’t know ( _yet_ ): during a most horrible team-up with some of their alternate versions, an evil — grey, malicious, terrifying — version of Henry McCoy fools everyone by pulling inside Iceman a fragment of the death seed from Apocalypse himself. He stores it for later in another mutant, knowing that the ice will make it dormant and take time to activate again and corrupt the body of its new carrier. Not even Bobby Drake notices and takes the darkness growing within him, the intense nightmares and sleepless nights, the grooming, the horrible thoughts, the rage, the variation in mood as trauma from what he has seen in those parallel universes.

The death seed takes Robert slowly and turns him into ice the same way he turned Apocalypse into cruelty. Bobby Drake, who does not notice this change in himself, loses parts of him as they become sentient and scatter themselves through the world, preparing for a battle that only they know. They watch Pietro and they call the girlfriends and one of them tries to attack Mystique in the shower. Their haste in protecting what is left of Bobby’s heart only makes the awakening of Iceman come faster, opening his chest to reveal ice and red.

At his cell in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s protected custody, Henry McCoy laughs to himself quietly as he reads about a snowstorm coming fast towards many places of the Earth, but the guards do not understand. Nobody does.

Until they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long, I know, but I had some problems with the sex scenes because... Well, I didn't write them until now and I wasn't feeling very comfortable with, you know, writing it. So you may notice they aren't long or descriptive. I just couldn't write them the way I wanted - then I realized I didn't want to write it lol
> 
> Anyway, one day I will finish this story and the others. Have faith!


End file.
